Particularly in today's technological computer era, online systems for accessing data have become very popular. As the internet has increased in popularity, more database repositories are being accessed through the internet.
While some systems allow access to healthcare data to certain parties through the internet, they lack a unified point for each of the various stakeholders of a medical case—regardless of whether the stakeholders are a part of the same entity or part of different entities—to gain access to all data, such as doctor's notes and reports, that is relevant to that stakeholder. For example, the most prominent use of electronic data exchange of healthcare data is the use of “clearinghouses” to provide billing information to payors. In these systems, the clearinghouses collect invoices from the healthcare providers and the payors (e.g. insurers, self-insured employers, or third-party administrators) are provided with batch collections of invoices from multiple providers, providing a single access point for some payors, but no case or medical information for the employer or case manager. Some large hospitals or healthcare providers set up systems to exchange invoice data electronically to provide the invoices to the clearinghouses because invoices are usually all that is necessary for General Healthcare. General Healthcare relates to healthcare services other than Occupational Medicine and Workers' Compensation. However, in most Workers' Compensation and Occupational medicine cases, invoices cannot be paid until the doctor's notes and reports have been received. Providers generally use regular postal mail to send the notes to the payor, which leaves out other stakeholders of a medical case and delays receipt of the information to all stakeholders, including the payor, by several weeks.
Currently, many healthcare providers spend substantial financial and personnel resources managing Occupational Medicine cases and processing the large volumes of paperwork. For example, Occupational Medicine and Workers' Compensation cases are a small portion of the medical industry but, in California alone, approximately $400M per year is spent just on scanning and indexing medical case documents received by fax or postal mail.
Thus, there is a need for systems that enable various stakeholders to access relevant Occupational Medicine and Workers' Compensation information, regardless of who the other stakeholders are and regardless of the systems used by healthcare providers. These and other advantages are successfully incorporated in embodiments of the present invention without sacrificing the security that is desired and often required by state or federal regulations for protecting healthcare information.